Mathilde 02 - The Poison Maiden (18 page)

I made my farewells. As I approached the gatehouse, the sounds of carpenters and masons echoed raucously. Now the Angelus rest was finished, the labourers were returning to their work. Ap Ythel, busy tying the points of his hose, came striding up the path.

‘Mathilde, the queen dowager’s man Guido, that lord of the latrines, has been looking for you. I told him you were still closeted with the queen.’ Ap Ythel smiled. ‘He asked if the new perfume in Burgundy Hall was a Welsh fragrance. I told him it was probably Gascon, but,’ he nodded to the main door of the hall, ‘the workmen have solved the problem. The latrines and gulleys need to be cleansed. It will take a few more days until the stench has gone. Tell our pert Gascon that.’

I promised to do so, my mind on other matters. I reached the upper gallery of the Old Palace and hastened along to the queen dowager’s chamber. I passed a window and glimpsed movement in the yard below. Agnes d’Albret, her cowl half hiding her head and face, slipped out of the line of trees and paused. Another figure followed, a man. He glanced up at the sky, and just for a few heartbeats I recognised Gaveston’s handsome face. Agnes turned and stroked his arm. The favourite grasped her hand, and drawing her closer, kissed her full on the brow and lips before slipping back into the trees. I stood dumbfounded. Agnes might be informing the favourite of what was happening, but was there something else? The way they’d parted seemed more like lovers after a secret assignation. I hurried on. By the time I reached the queen dowager’s apartments, Guido was entertaining her and the countess with stories in the patois of the scholars of the left bank of the Seine, explaining how
mariage
was slang for hanging;
arques petits
were little dice, and
empz
corpses. At the same time he was showing how a dice could be cogged and loaded so it fell the way the thrower wanted, translating it as
frouer des gours arques
and explaining how such counterfeits must always have an accomplice, a lookout against the Angelz, the archers of the Provost of Paris. Agnes interrupted this, bursting in all hot and flustered. Countess Margaret, however, for reasons best known to herself, suddenly began listing her favourite months of the year. She declared how January was one of these because the last of the Yuletide feasts, the ‘Day of the Boy Bishop’, was celebrated then, and how, in her father’s manor at Oswestry, sausage, meat and game bird were, after the Feast of the Epiphany, hung from the kitchen’s rafters to be smoked and dried.

‘And that smell,’ she declared smilingly. (God knows she could act as witless as a butterfly!) ‘It always makes me feel homely and comfortable.’

The queen dowager took up the point, declaring that June was her favourite month because she could remember the royal gardeners culling the red roses of Provence to be crushed so as to obtain their perfumed, soothing oil whilst their petals were woven into sweet-scented garlands. The conversation moved on to gardens in general: the classic arrangement of sixteen beds, one for each variety of herb, whilst the larger kitchen garden, or
hortus
, had eighteen, divided by a path into neat rows sheltered from the sun. The queen dowager asked me about the peony. I explained how the plant was named after Paeon, physician to the ancient gods, and was to be regarded as the plant of the moon. Guido mockingly quoted Pliny on the subject; how the peony could be both male and female and should only be garnered at night, whilst a string of dried peony beads were a sure protection against evil.

During the conversation, I watched Agnes closely. She was undoubtedly agitated, refusing to meet my eye, casting about, acting very disconcerted. If she talked, she chattered aimlessly then lapsed into silence. Under my direction, the conversation moved from flowers to the meeting arranged for the morrow after solemn high mass in the abbot’s garden. The queen dowager, after making pleasantries, conceded there was little more she could do. Winchelsea and Lincoln, leaders of the disaffected lords, were demanding the immediate convocation of a parliament to publish their
gravimina
– their grievances against Gaveston. I intimated how my mistress’ possible pregnancy must not be overlooked. The queen dowager accepted this, but replied that the king would have to concede something to the Lords. Nevertheless, Margaret promised to reflect on what I had told her; she declared that she hoped for the best but planned for the worst.

The queen dowager was undoubtedly uncertain and unsure. She’d lost her usual calm poise, and as if to distract us all, announced that we should play Hoodman’s Blind, Guido being the Hoodman. Countess Margaret, God bless her simple soul, rapturously agreed. I reluctantly joined in, helping to pull the hood over Guido’s head then scattering with the rest as he began to play about, trying to catch us. I moved and turned. I wished to be away when Agnes abruptly caught me by the arm.

‘Is it safe?’ she whispered.

‘Is it safe what?’ I answered.

‘To cross over,’ she replied. ‘Mathilde, you tell your news, but how will this end? Are you not suspicious?’ Then she hastened away as Guido came blundering towards us.

Eventually Guido caught the countess Margaret and the game stopped. The hood was taken off and passed to her, and all was about to begin again when there was a knock on the door. Ap Ythel came in, bowed and beckoned towards me. I made my excuses to the queen dowager and joined him in the gallery outside.

‘
Deo gratias
,’ I murmured.

Ap Ythel looked at me strangely.

‘
Deo gratias
,’ I repeated. ‘I could not play another second.’

The Welshman grinned.

‘You have another game waiting for you, mistress, down at the gate. The clerk Demontaigu, he is there with a lad called Spit Boy, come from the Secret of Solomon tavern. He says he must have urgent words with you . . .’

I hastened down. Demontaigu stood solemn-faced. Spit Boy, sweat-soaked, thrust his hand out, eager for the coin I pressed into his palm.

‘You must come, my master is most insistent.’ He beckoned at me. ‘He has something to show you.’

‘What?’ I asked, pulling my cloak about me. I thanked Ap Ythel and led them away from the gate.

‘There’s a corpse,’ Spit Boy whispered hoarsely, ‘stiff and cold as a poker. He’s lying in the tavern, the man you were asking about, Pax-Bread? He’s been murdered, mistress.’ Spit Boy dragged a finger across his throat. ‘A piece of rope around here, tied tight, eyes bulging, mouth gaping, tongue sticking out! A horrible sight. Mistress, you must come and see for yourself.’

I grasped Demontaigu’s arm. He was pale, unshaven and unwashed, like a man who’d suffered a bad night’s sleep and a day equally as troublesome. I was not able to converse with him, but followed Spit Boy as he led us through the palace grounds down to King’s Steps. It was early evening. A waiting barge took us quickly towards Queenshithe, where we disembarked. Spit Boy, who regarded it all as a great game, scampered before us like a puppy leading us through the streets. The day was dying, the city emptying. I suffered what I call the horrors, an eerie blood-chilling experience that has never waned over the years: it is provoked by moving swiftly from one extreme to another. I’ve sheltered in comfortable courts, in luxurious palaces, in chambers lined with tapestries, only to step into a world completely different. I have often reflected on this. How the times I’ve lived in are not moderate, but intense in every way. I have worshipped in cathedrals where the stone arches like a hymn and the light pours through beautiful multicoloured glass to bathe the nave in all the glory of heaven. And yet I’ve passed through those same cathedral doors on to its steps where beggars, with wounds turning green, plead for alms; madcaps and malaperts perform strange dances; and hermits, maddened by their own vision of God, preach the horrors of hell and the wickedness of the world. In the square below, bodies dangle from scaffolds, the breath choking out through their twisted throats even as the last beautiful notes of the cathedral choir echo in my ear.

So it was that evening as we hastened through the emptying streets. Traders were taking down stalls, whilst half-naked men, women and children fought over scraps scattered on the cobbles. A beggar, drunk on cheap ale, tried to kiss an ancient whore clasped in the stocks. Dogs tore the corpse of a bloated cat. A friar crouched over a fallen man, hissing the words of a penitential psalm. A madman prayed before the statue of a saint high in its stone niche, whilst beside him, a gallant undid the bodice of a whore and greedily felt her full breasts. Bailiffs were beating a drunk. The cage on the Tun in Cheapside was full of dark figures scampering and leaping about shouting obscenities, whilst further down the thoroughfare, a group of bedesmen moved from house to house singing the Salve Regina. A knight in half-armour returning from a tourney passed by on his black destrier like the figure of death. A tousle-headed bearded giant, dressed in the fraying skin of a horse, stood on the steps of a church. He shook the great cudgel he carried and shouted how he had been sent by the Baptist to search out Herod and smash his skull. Images, memories, a mix of fears and terrors at all I saw and heard. Spit Boy raced ahead of us, leaping like a March hare. Demontaigu, head down, cowl pulled over his face quietly mouthed a prayer. I felt like stopping and screaming at the tensions that surrounded me. I swiftly turned, eyes searching for any pursuer, but the dark twisting lanes were empty. Shadows drifted across. I could not tell if they were part of my world or some strange other. We continued on, and at last reached the Secret of Solomon.

Mine Host met us in the noisy taproom, eager to keep the matter, as he put it, tapping his swollen fleshy nose, ‘
sub rosa
’. He led us into the garden and across to an outhouse. Spit Boy went ahead of us, hopping like a flea on a hot plate, screeching at the top of his voice how it was all horrid murder and the victim was terrible to see with his popping eyes and swollen tongue. Mine Host roared at him to be quiet and led us into the outhouse. He took a lantern horn off its hook and brought it closer so we could view the corpse more clearly. Spit Boy had spoken the truth. Pax-Bread in life had been comely; death had turned him ugly, his face all puffy and livid because of the red-purple weal from the garrotte string around his neck.

‘He was found early this morning,’ Mine Host declared, ‘by scavengers clearing a nearby brook. He was brought here, the nearest tavern. A coroner came and declared that it was a “death other than his natural one”. The knave demanded his fee, drank a pot of ale, gobbled a platter of diced pork and left. I’m supposed to pay the full cost of burial.’

I opened my purse and thrust a silver coin in to his hand. ‘That should cover everything; if not, Spit Boy knows where to come.’

‘Very good.’ Mine Host mopped his brow with his dirty apron. ‘Get Hawisa,’ he breathed. Spit Boy scampered off.

‘Who is she?’ Demontaigu asked.

Again Mine Host tapped his nose. Spit Boy came hurtling back, eager for another coin. I gave one to him and his companion, a young scullery maid, red-faced, desperate to keep the flimsy hat firmly over her thick hair. She yelped as she caught sight of Pax-Bread’s corpse and stared round-eyed at me.

‘Dead!’ she screeched. ‘Mistress, he wasn’t when I saw him!’

I grasped her hands. ‘Hawisa, stay calm, just tell me what happened.’

‘I didn’t know about this,’ Mine Host blustered, ‘not until the corpse was found. She took the message up. She should have told me, but there again, the taproom was busy.’

‘Hush now. Please.’ I gestured at the corpse. ‘Cover that.’

Spit Boy, disappointed at not being able to view the macabre sight more closely, came and stood by Hawisa.

‘Tell her,’ he hissed, ‘what you know. You’ ll get another coin!’

‘He,’ Hawisa pointed at the sheeted corpse, ‘was in the tavern. I was in the kitchen. I was hot, so I came out into the yard, you know, towards the rear gate. This woman came out of the dark. At first I thought she was some apple squire, a pimp or a whore.’

‘Describe her.’

‘Mistress, I’ve told you it was very dark. She looked like a nun.’

‘A nun?’

‘Yes, there was a wimple round her face. In the faint light her skin looked smooth; her voice was soft. I said, “Mistress how fare ye?” and she replied, “I have a message for him.”’ Hawisa pointed at the corpse. ‘She gave me his name. I replied, “How will he know, what are you called?” “Agnes,” she replied. “Give him this.” She handed me a coin and thrust a leather pouch into my hand. I ran back into the tavern, went into a corner and opened the pouch. I thought it might be coins, but it was a roll of parchment. Very thin, with some letters on it.’ She shrugged. ‘I cannot read. The pouch also contained two waxen seals.’

‘What mark did they carry?’